"Cross" + "hug" = "thug"

Thanks to Keely Emerine-Mix I am steadily learning to overcome my many prejudices and see the world through new, more truly Christian eyes. For example, in this post, she takes a critic to task for failing to remember Hebrews 10:33-34 when he writes of the "gun-to-your-head" thievery of the State in providing for the poor:

"Partly, whilst ye were made a spectacle both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used. For ye had compassion on me in my bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance."

Now this is very interesting indeed. First, it is interesting because normally the first verses that come to mind in thinking of welfare -- especially health care -- for those outside the faith would be the parable of the Good Samaritan. However, Mrs. Mix can't cite those verses in this case because the content of that story makes her interlocutor's point that welfare is to be personal, direct, and voluntary, rather than impersonal, indirect, and involuntary as when the State comes and holds a gun to your head to take your money and give it to somebody else.

So it is a good thing that Mrs. Mix had this passage to refer to, because I was able to realize how I had been misunderstanding and misapplying it all along. Silly me, I used to think that this was describing how the State -- or some institution able to get the civil magistrate to cooperate in wielding the power of the sword -- was persecuting Christians for their faith, and the recipients of the epistle were being praised for their willingness to be persecuted for their faith at the hands of the State, and to share in the sufferings of others so persecuted. I had been under the mistaken impression that this implied that what the State was doing to these people was evil. But now, thanks to Mrs. Mix's excellent exegesis, I can see that what the State was doing there was actually a Very Good and Praiseworthy Thing, something that we can cite today as a reason why Christians should support all sorts of government welfare programs.